Upcoming prospects for Bench Boost (and Free Hit!)

 

Now, of course, the best time to play the Bench Boost chip will vary for each manager - probably more so than just about any other aspect of FPL 'strategy', as it depends on all 15 members of your squad (whereas, for the Triple Captain, the options are pretty much the same for everyone - especially at the moment this year!). However, as I pointed out the other day, the Bench Boost is a chip whose value derives from the collective return of the full squad: you not only need to have all 15 players starting their matches, you want to have as many of them as possible playing weak opponents. 

And sure, you will focus mainly on the fixture-difficulty for your 'usual' bench players. But the fixtures for the starting eleven can be very relevant also: if some of them are facing especially tough fixtures, you might not really want to start them that week (you probably don't want to bet on your Arsenal and Liverpool players, for instance - or not all of them, anyway - when they're playing each other). And there may be opportunities to tweak your squad - with a splurge of saved Free Transfers, or perhaps even a Wildcard rebuild a week or two beforehand; or, this year, with the over-generous award of additional Free Transfers for the start of AFCON in Gameweek 16 - to take maximum advantage of an unusually appealing set of fixtures in a particular gameweek.

This year, for the first (and, hopefully, last!) time, we are getting an additional Bench Boost chip, which has to be played in the first half of the season - before the end of December. Some people were so befuddled by this surprising and unnecessary rule change that they spent the chip very early (many even in the very first week of the season - which was completely NUTS!)

It has always looked to me as if the most promising gameweeks for this first Bench Boost would come in the latter part of its eligible window, over the coming month or so.

In fact, this coming Gameweek 12 might look especially appealing - with Villa playing Leeds, Bournemouth playing West Ham, Chelsea playing Burnley. Palace playing Wolves, Liverpool playing Forest, and Manchester United facing a recently out-of-sorts Everton. That is one of the most 'lopsided' sets of fixtures we'll see all season. But I am a little wary of it, because it comes straight after an international break, when there are increased uncertainties about players' form and fitness: travel fatigue as much as game weariness can take the edge off players' performances (South American internationals, in particular, are often rested for the first game back, just because they've had to endure such long return flights), and minor injury problems may not have been disclosed. Also, the disruption of usual club routines, and especially the shortage of time to conduct tactical preparation, means that almost all teams will be something below their best this coming weekend - and some match outcomes (more than usual!) may therefore be surprises.

Gameweek 13 is also promising, with Villa playing Wolves, Brentford playing Burnley, Liverpool playing West Ham, City playing Leeds, and Spurs playing Fulham - although Arsenal being drawn against Chelsea may give pause to managers with a lot of representation from those two teams (surely everyone now has 3 Arsenal players; but it's quite easy, at the moment, to get by with 1 or 0 picks from Chelsea!). And City against Leeds is probably a prime opportunity to chance the Triple Captain on Haaland, so that's a tricky dilemma.

Gameweek 14 doesn't look so hot, with a lot of quite finely balanced match-ups, and only United against West Ham, City against Fulham, and Palace against Burnley looking likely to be really one-sided.

Gameweek 15, though, might be another fairly good prospect: Brighton playing West Ham, Newcastle playing Burnley, Liverpool playing Leeds, City playing Sunderland (certainly not a gimme, but Haaland will probably fancy it...), and United playing Wolves. However, Arsenal away to Villa, Chelsea away to Bournemouth, and Brentford away to Spurs might perhaps go either way, and if you have a lot of players from from those teams, the Bench Boost might look a bit too risky. But if you've managed to save up a few transfers over the preceding weeks, you mightt have the opportunity to optimize your squad this week with a 'virtual Free Hit' (being able to immediately undo any changes that you want to, with the 5 Free Transfers being made available in the following Gameweek 16).

Gameweek 16 is a bit less enticing: although Arsenal, Villa, and Brentford have soft opponents, a lot of matches in this batch - United/Bournemouth, Liverpool/Brighton, Burnley/Fulham, Palace/City, and the Sunderland/Newcastle derby - might all be very tight, 

The fixtures in Gameweeks 18 and 19 include a lot of top-of-the-table clashes, where most FPL managers will have too many players pitted against each other to be able to expect a really good overall haul. And I'd tend to avoid those gameweeks anyway, because the matches are crowded together in the Christmas holiday week: family distractions, more limited preparation, and usually abysmal weather tend to hamper performance in these games, and you rarely see the best of anyone; and a lot of players may be getting rationed minutes, or be rested altogether for one of the games.

Moreover, that's a bit far away to plan for - so much might have changed with form and injuries by then. And, especially with something like the Bench Boost, which requires all 15 players to be fit, and starting, and at their best, it is too much of a risk to leave the chip until the very end of the available window for use: if a rash of late injuries suddenly renders the ploy invalid, you might have only one more week in which to play it, or..... no remaining alternative at all.

That last point also argues against leaving the BB until Gameweek 17, but bold managers might be tempted to give it a try, if they fancy Arsenal against Everton, Bournemouth against Burnley, Brentford against Wolves, and City against West Ham (although that could be possibly the strongest opportunity of the season for a Haaland Triple Cap!). However, Villa/United, Brighton/Sunderland, Newcastle/Chelsea, and Spurs/Liverpool will be rather harder to call.

And of course, all of these gameweeks with an unusually large number of one-sided fixtures - and/or some close match-ups where you might want to avoid having several of your best players facing each other - are also prime candidates for playing the Free Hit chip.

You don't want to be playing any chips early in the season, if you can possibly help it, because tactics and selections, team and individual form take a month or two to settle down - after the dust of the summer transfer window has settled. And this year, the pattern of the fixtures definitely creates a heavy bias towards using them at the very end of the available window. Heck, some lucky people haven't even used their Wildcard yet; and most people with any sense will still have all the others. Hence, we're faced with the challenge of how to make the best use of 3 or 4 chips within the space of just 7 or 8 weeks. This kind of 'overcrowding' is not an enhancement to the game. The introduction of the additional chips this year was yet another stupid idea from our FPL overlords.

NB:  You can't rely on FPL's 'Fixture Difficulty Rating' (as in the screencap at the top of this piece) as an indicator of likely outcomes. It is only, at best, a very crude guide to the relative status of clubs. It seems to take no account of factors like the form or fitness of key players, only 'expected performance' based - initially - on last year's results. It is ludicrously slow to update its assessments, doesn't appear to have much, if any, weighting towards recent results (as it ought to), and maintains an entrenched prejudice against promoted teams, even if they're doing well (4th-placed Sunderland are still considered an 'easy' opponent for almost everyone?!). The FDR grid is a handy reminder of what the fixtures are; but you have to use your own knowledge and judgement to decide which games are actually likely to be very one-sided or very tight, and which team will be the more probable winner.

Another little breather....

 

Yet another international break is upon us. We should really be grateful for a little bit of a rest from the relentless grind of the FPL season,.... and yet, and yet we do tend to fret at the sudden absence of our usual preoccupations and anxieties at the end of the week.

'Withdrawal symptoms'!!

A little bit of Zen (68)

 

“We have set our sights very high; so high, so high, in fact, that even failure would have in it an echo of glory."

Bill Nicholson

The legendary Spurs manager, who led the club to its greatest successes in the early 1960s, was a surprisingly idealistic, and indeed, at times, a poetic chap. 

We can all take inspiration from this thought.

How much is a Bench Boost worth?

I thought I'd better follow up on yesterday's post about calculating the value of the Triple Captain chip with a companion piece on its cousin, the other 'bonus chip', the Bench Boost.

As with the Triple Cap, FPL managers often like to self-deceive about the extent of their success in playing this chip. Because the points scored by all 15 squad players will be counted for the gameweek when this chip is in play, they will often protest that team selection "doesn't mattter" - and so contrive to accidentally-on-purpose leave some of their best players on the bench. If 'bench players' end up recording 2 or 3 - or even 4! - of their best individual scores of the week, then of course it will appear that their bench collectively produced enormous points,... and that can all be credited to a canny deployment of the Bench Boost chip, so these folks like to claim. But of course, that just ain't so.

Even if we go through the motions of trying to make a normal team selection, with the players who look likely to have the week's shakiest points prospects left on the bench, many of us may still fall prey to this idea that "it doesn't really matter" and be a bit lazy or hasty in deciding the starting eleven; even if we're not consciously stacking the bench with some of our more promising prospects, we might subconsciously be guilty of it. 

And even if, by a freak of good fortune, the 4 poorest prospects left on your bench have returned uncommonly well, contrary to your honest expectations - that isn't worth much if a lot of your starters have returned 'blanks'. The Bench Boost is indeed a reward for collective excellence, and you ought to evaluate it in terms of the overall return from all 15 players.

I follow two 'rules of thumb' for gauging the success of playing my Bench Boost:

1)  Decide my 'bench players' after the event, based on the lowest points returned from my squad (bearing in mind the 'formation rules' on eligible team selection): thus, I only count 4 of my lowest player scores as the value of the Bench Boost.

2)  Consider my squad total score against the gameweek's 'Global Average', to get an idea of how much bettter I did - if at all - than in a typical non-Bench Boost gameweek. (I typically manage around 10 points better than the 'Global Average'; in a 'good' week, around 15 or so better. So, I don't consider I've had a successful Bench Boost unless it's put me at least 25-30 points above the 'Global Average'. I'll make mental adjustments to that rough scale of comparison, based on how high-scoring or low-scoring a gameweek it was [and, of course, there will be some gameweeks where huge numbers of people are playing the Bench Boost, which complicates this calculation!]. But in most gameweeks, 15 points above 'Global Average' would probably still represent a very poor return on the Bench Boost, and 20-25 points barely adequate.)

Now, in practice, your Bench Boost is rarely going to be worth all that much - because, inevitably, you have your weakest players left on the bench. And, very often, you'll find that at least one of your squad doesn't play that week for some reason, so you'll only have 3 players (or sometimes even fewer....) contributing from your bench. Typically your bench consists of a back-up goalkeeper, a rarely-used (and perhaps ultra-cheap) 5th defender, and whoever your other 2 weakest players look likely to be on that week's fixtures. It's not a recipe for huge points!

That being the case, the Bench Boost can benefit significantly more from a Double Gameweek than the Triple Captain does: because these are players who are unlikely to produce any big returns, even minimum 'appearance points' from a second fixture will give a useful proportional boost to their total for the gameweek. However, if you follow my austere policy of only counting your lowest-returning players as comprising the value of your Bench Boost, you really need just about the entire squad to be enjoying a double-fixture (if only your usual bench players have double fixtures, they'd probably become preferred starters for that gameweek, and your 'true' bench, with only single fixtures. would probably not score quite as well) - and BIG Double Gameweeks like that don't happen any more. (The only week where we could sometimes see 12-16 Premier League teams enjoying a Double Gameweek at the same time was when FA Cup Quarter-Final participants would have their League games from that weekend all rescheduled to the same gameweek [and that didn't always happen; sometimes they were split...]. But since last season, the Premier League is suspending its match programme on the Quarter-Final weekend, so we don't get any postponements from that any more.)

This season, we've been given the novelty gimmick of a 2nd Bench Boost, only valid for the first half of the season - when there are no Double Gameweeks anyway! And as I observed in relation to the Triple Captain chip earlier in the season, now that Double Gameweeks are so few and so small, there's no reliable advantage in them any more (to be attractive possibilities for etiher type of Bonus Chip, at least one of the two fixtures for each of your players needs to be against a really easy opponent; and you have no idea if that is going to be the case until very shortly beforehand). 

It is a huge risk to wait until the last few weeks of the season on such a slim possibility of a slightly enhanced return for those chips; it's certainly not worth passing up favourable combinations of fixtures in gameweeks earlier in the season.

As I mentioned last week, it's best to stay agile and be prepared to play your Bench Boost opportunistically - any time when you feel really confident that all 15 of your squad players are going to start, and most of them, at least, are facing promising fixtures.

Of course, it also helps if you've managed to assemble a particularly strong squad, and one that is especially targeted towards the gameweek's weaker fixtures. In the past, we've generally liked to try to play the Bench Boost chip immediately following a Wildcard, so that our squad is fully optimized for form and fitness, and for the coming week's fixtures. 

Since last season, the new rule allowing us to bank up to 5 Free Transfers has effectively given us the theoretical opportunity of further 'mini-Wildcard' plays, where we could substantially remodel our squads if we've managed to save up extra transfers for a few weeks. In practice, it's incredibly difficult to save 5 FTs - and probably self-harming to try! - but being able to use even 2 or 3 transfers at once can be a significant advantage in optimizing the squad for a Bench Boost attempt. And, of course, remodelling this way, rather than with a Wildcard, enables you to make your changes right on the eve of the gameweek, thereby minimizing the risk of injuries removing some of your squad (a major hazard, if you're having to 'set up' for your Bench Boost using a Wildcard the week before).

Also, this season we have the further unnecessary gimmick of being given additional Free Transfers in Gameweek 16 (supposedly to ease the impact of players departing for AFCON; but at the moment, it's looking very unlikely that anyone will own any African players... apart from Bryan Mbeumo). The odd way this GIFT is being implemented - giving us extra Free Transfers, up to a maximum holding of 5 of them - means that, in order to best take advantage of this measure, we need to use up all of our existing Free Transfers by Gameweek 15. And if we've managed to save up quite a few of them, Gameweek 15 might then be a promising opportunity for the first Bench Boost. Or Gameweek 16, when we'll suddenly find ourselves magically in possession of another 5 Free Transfers. Or possibly even in Gameweeks 17 or 18, when we should still be reaping the advantages of those recent major rebuilds.  (FPL's needless largesse in Gameweek 16 could also be seen as giving us an additional 'mini' Free Hit in the preceding Gameweek: we could use saved Free Transfers to substantially recast our squad for one week only, undoing all of the changes again immediately with the extra transfers being given us for the start of AFCON.)   [I wrote a follow-up piece here - with a bit more detail on this issue of which gameweeks (in the first half of the current season) look most propitious for possibly playing the Bench Boost.]

However, even if you have managed to optimally 'set up' your squad to use this chip, you should consider 10-15 points - fairly counted - for your Bench Boost as adequate; anything around 20 is a very good return; and 25+ is absolutely outstanding.

But, again, as with the Triple Captain, you should temper your expectations, and realise that the chip can easily return little or nothing. If you have a dismal Bench Boost score this season,.... maybe you'll get a big one next time. That's how the game goes.

What is a Triple Captain worth?

 

There are two aspects to that question:  1)  How should you assess the points value of the Triple Captain chip?  and 2)  How many points can you expect to earn from it?

Unfortunately, if your thinking is muddled on the first part of the question (as it often seems to be in FPL-land), that prevents you forming a clear idea of what you ought to be aiming for with the chip.

People very commonly claim that their return from playing the Triple Captain is THREE times the gameweek points-haul for their chosen captain. But this is just empty bragging, or dangerous self-delusion. (People who somehow persuade themselves that the value of the chip is TWUCE their captain's points-haul are even more perversely misguided in their way of looking at this!)  Of course, you should really only be interested in the points lift that the chip gives you over what you would have had without it. And you'd get the basic points haul for that player anyway. In fact, since you surely would have made him your captain anyway, you would have got twice his points-haul for the week if you hadn't played the chip. So, the additional value of the Triple Captain chip is only the basic points-haul total, not some multiple of it.

I have discussed in some detail before the issue of whether the Triple Captain chip invariably pays off better in a Double Gameweek. (Summary; it can - but usually it does not. And it's a very dangerous thing to gamble on, since Double Gameweeks are now few and small, and right at the back end of the season.)

My general advice on both types of Bonus Chip is that you have to be prepared to play them opportunistically. There can be so many swings in player and individual form over a season that you often don't know who the hottest player of the year is going to be until a streak of exceptional returns suddenly emerges,.... and you often don't know what anyone's 'easiest' fixture is going to be until shortly before it happens. You can suss out the likely most promising options some months ahead; but you need to stay flexible, and be prepared for those tentative plans to completely change. (This year, Erling Haaland is still in form, and still the only FPL player regularly producing big points returns. And it has been fairly obvious since the start of the season that his two best fixtures in the first half of the season were likely to be City's home gaines against Leeds and West Ham in Gameweeks 13 and 17. So - for once - the start-of-season provisional plan for most people hasn't changed.... yet. But a lot of people weren't prepared to risk waiting this long, when Haaland was also knocking in braces of goals against better opponents. And now there is a chance that Saka or Mbeumo might be coming into tempting form as possible alternative picks. If Haaland gets injured in the next few weeks, then there'll have to be a late change of plan.... Such things often happen.)

Of course, you hope to successfully target one of your best hauls of the season for a Triple Captain play - but it is not reasonable to expect to land on the best; it's all just too unpredictable. Almost always, in fact, your and everyone else's best haul of the season comes from some complete random that you would never have expected to produce for you - and didn't very often, so wasn't a strong bet for the TC chip. You have to focus on players who can bag very large hauls multiple times a season, and who maintain top form for extended periods. Even if they won't ultimately provide any of your very best scores of the season, they are more reliable bets to provide a good score in a particular gameweek.

You shouldn't use the chip lightly, just throw it away on impulse; you should carefully choose a week in which your best player, when he's in his best form, is facing an opponent against whom he should have an especially high chance of scoring more than one goal.

But even the most exceptional players don't return every week. Usually, in fact, they'll 'blank' at least 1 game in every 3 across the season, probably closer to 1 game in 2. And sometimes even a Mo Salah or an Erling Haaland in their hottest run of form will still manage to 'blank' against a poor side.

You have to steel yourself to accept that a Triple Captain play can return nothing - and very often does. Perhaps 1 time in 3, your Triple Captain will only produce basic 'appearance points', or even less (the annals of FPL abound with horror stories of managers who ventured their TC on a player who got injured inside 10 minutes, or missed a penalty, or received a red card....).  

You have to be grateful for any sort of return at all from the chip; and very, very grateful if your haul from it happens to break into double-digits, even narrowly. It is foolish to expect - or even to hope for - a massive dividend of 15 or 20 or 25 points. That kind of thing happens fairly rarely, and requires a very large dose of LUCK.

[I wrote a follow-up post a day or two later on how to assess the impact of your Bench Boost chip.]

Unlucky Alf revisited

Last week, I noticed one of my regular antagonists had been having a hard time of it in FPL lately, and had suffered a particularly abysmal Gameweek 10. I commented that there didn't actually seem to be anything amiss with his squad, and I hoped that he would have the fortitude to stick by his selections and not rush into a lot of panicky changes.

And look at this - he put out the same team in Gameweek 11, and enjoyed markedly different fortune. That's the way this game goes: some weeks, you're lucky, some weeks, you're not.

 

This time out, despite having again picked the 'wrong' captain, and getting disappointing returns from Calafiori and Szoboszlai (with perfect foresight, he could have had a few more points off his bench),.... he managed nearly twice the global average; that lifted him into the top 22,000 for the week, and probably put him top of most of his mini-leagues. 

That was nearly 11.5 million places higher than his miserable GW10 ranking - surely one of the biggest week-to-week swings ever recorded.

This example is a powerful illustration of the point I always try to stress about Fantasy Football: you have to avoid being too reactive, to resist being swayed by your emotions. When you have a bad week, you have to try to calmly analyse why it's gone badly for you - before you decide to make any changes. Often, there's nothing wrong with your selections at all; you just had a week where everything broke against you.

Even in a pretty good week, you usually have at least 3 or 4 of your starting eleven who will 'blank'; quite often, there may be 5 or 6 who fail to bring you a return. And - Statistics being the Cruel Mistress that she is - that means that you're occasionally going to have a week where almost everyone fails to produce any worthwhile points. It doesn't mean they're bad selections; you just had an unlucky week. Hang tough - and next week will probably be better; maybe a lot better!

Luck-o-Meter 25-26 - Gameweek 11

Arsenal's long run of clean sheets coming to an end hit FPL hard - as many managers are now doubled or even trebled up on their defence; almost everyone seemingly now owns Gabriel and/or Raya plus one other,.... and that did not work out well this week. It's also a pretty rare event to see 2 failed penalty conversions - even over one weekend, let alone on the same day,... let alone from two of the most popular players in the game!

Spurs v Manchester United was very much the 'game of two halves'. It was frankly embarrassing how easily the visitors were allowed to dominate proceedings in the opening 45 minutes - looking comfortably on top, and really more like the home side, but - as usual - struggling to create many clearcut chances. Thomas Frank must have deployed the 'hairdryer' at the interval, because Spurs came back out with a greatly increased sense of urgency and soon got back on top of things - though they likewise struggled to create chances, and it was really quite a drab match until the late flurry of goals from both sides led to a bizarre - but probably fair - draw. Those late goals were a harsh blow for Bryan Mbeumo, and his FPL owners, though; he was - once again - by far United's best player, but thanks to the perversity of the BPS, that burst of scoring at the death robbed him of any bonus points, as well as wiping out his clean-sheet bonus; he'd been on course for an 11-point game, and it was whittled down to just 7 points in a matter of minutes! This week's bizarre curveball from Ruben Amorim was to give Amad Diallo another try-out as one of his '10's, which necessitated playing Bryan Mbeumo out of position in the left-half space rather than his preferred right side (while again trying to get Cunha to operate as a centre-forward, which he is not cut out for at all; he had a face like thunder on the bench, after being pulled off in the 70th minute, and one must suspect that there is some serious dressing-room disharmony brewing at the club). It increasingly feels as though this constant tinkering with the lineup is not considered tactical innovation, but simply a desperate case of throwing everything at the wall to see if anything will stick.

Everton cruised to an ultimately fairly comfortable win against a toothless Fulham, who, alas, are increasingly looking like strong favourites for relegation. The major FPL luck-blip here was probably yet another late, late goal, from a defender - and it being somewhat of a fluke, ballooning into the net off Michael Keane's shoulder-blade after he'd completely missed his near-post header. Sasa Lukic was a little fortunate to escape a dismissal for cynically bundling over Dewsbury-Hall just before half-ttime, after having already picked up an early card.

Everton fans. and FPL owners of certain of their players (Tarkowski particularly!), may feel aggrieved that they had a remarkable 3 goals chalked off for - fairly non-obvious - 'offsides'. For the first and third of these incidents, you can accept that Ndiaye and Barry were slightly offside and close to the keeper, in a position to maybe get something on the ball being played into the danger area; but for the Tarkowski goal, WTF??  Yes, he had strayed in behind the back line when the first cross was hit; but at that point, he was having no immediate impact on the play; he immediately ran back onside, and surely a new 'phase' of play had been initiated before he struck his shot - the ball went all the way out to the far side, was played back to Ndiaye who put in another cross, which was half-cleared before falling to Tarkowski to smash home a half-volley; 3, 4, 5 other players had touched the ball and secconds had passed since the brief instant when he was - irrelevantly - 'offisde' in the preceding passage of play. That was an absolutely absurd, disgraceful decision. (And this week, we seem to be getting no SAOT graphics shared - nor any reference made to the system, either in commentary or post-match discussions. Has the syttem's use been surreptitiously suspended?? The Offside Law and its implementation are a complete mess at the moment; and this unconvincing new technology is not helping the situation.)

West Ham v Burnley was mostly a competition of terrible defending, rather than of any more positive footballing qualities. The visitors looked comfortably in control for the first half hour or so, but then unaccountably let their focus slip, and allowed West Ham to get on top. But 1-1 would probably have been a 'fair' outcome; and the only reason the scoreline didn't end like that was a string of uncharacteristic goalkeeping howlers, two from Dubravka and one from Areola, right at the death. Owners of Jarrod Bowen (there are some) will feel piqued that his teammate Kyle Walker-Peters stole the ball off his toe to claim the final goal.

It shouldn't really have been any surprise that Arsenal's remarkable clean-sheet streak was due to end, or that 4th-placed Sunderland, on their home turf, might have been the team to do it - but probably no-one was expecting quite such a thrilling and finely-balanced game on Wearside. Zubimendi thundered one effort against the crossbar, and both teams really might easily have had 3 or 4 goals each. Mystifyingly, David Raya was not credited with any saves in this game - although he clearly made at least 3 important stops in the BBC highlights I've seen: what's up with that? (It is, alas, becoming increasingly apparent that we just can't trust any of the statistics on which the game of FPL is based; it is particularly vexing in the case of this year's novelty, the 'defensive points' - but it can make itself felt in all aspects of the scoring system.) Dan Ballard was perhaps a little lucky to escape giving away a penalty - and possibly suffering a red card - when he elbowed Mikel Merino in the face early on; but it did look like a natural 'footballing incident', devoid of any malicious intent. This game also saw one of the most egregious BPS injustices of all time: Ballard scored a superb opening goal, provided fhe assist for the late equaliser, and put in a heroic goal-mouth block right at the death which probably saved the point for his team - the obvious and undoubted 'Man of the Match', by a mile; but the BPS only ranked him 5th in the game???

Chelsea had to huff-and-puff a bit to secure their expected home win against a clueless Wolves. It wasn't a particularly convincing performance from them, but they ultimately came through comfortably enough, with Joao Pedro perhaps restoring confidence in many of his (remaining) owners with another smart finish; and a lively performance from Garnacho has probably now put him on the FPL radar.

Villa continued their impressive run of results with a big win at home against Bournemouth, but the final scoreline flattered them considerably, with all the goals being somewhat freakish: a chipped free-kick over the wall from Buendia that Petrovic probably should have been able to deal with, a firm scudding effort from 23 yards out by Onana that just sneaked in at the foot of the near-post, a looping back-header from substitute Ross Barkley, and another long-range effort that took a huge and decisive deflection off the heel of an oblivious Donyell Malen. The home side's best action in the game was really Emi Martinez's excellent penalty save from Semenyo rather than any of their attacking efforts. But Bournemouth were somehow just not at the races for this one - surely their worst performance of the season.

At Selhurst Park, the VAR team were actually doing their job properly (for possibly the only time this weekend) when they invited Tim Robinson to reconsider his decision to award a penalty for Rutter's rather blatant dive. (The big worry about this incident was that VAR appeared to be repeatedly showing only a juddery picture composed of a sequence of freeze-frames taken a 10th of a second or so apart, rather than either a normal-speed or slow-motion replay. This was very confusing, and actually failed to show the exact moment of contact at all - so the ref was rather left guessing what had happened from the players' body-language, rather than having been able to see it clearly.) Apart from that brief moment of excitement, there was little of note in a drab game, apart from Minteh and Kamada squandering one good chance for each side. Palace were short of energy after their Europa Conference League outing on Thursday evening; and they were also without captain Marc Guehi (now owned by a staggering 36% of Fantasy managers), a late omssion because he'd been struggling with a severe bruise on his foot after that game against Alkmaar. Brighton looked more like the home side here - dominating most of the possession and playing the better football, but failing to create many good chances. It was probably a little bit of a surprise that this fixture would produce the weekend's only goalless draw, and 2 of only 6 clean sheets from this batch of matches; but Brighton are starting to look much more secure in defence, and Verbruggen, in particular, had an impressive game here - pulling off a superb stop at the foot of his near post from Pino's stinging low shot in the closing seconds of the game.

Well, I had thought that the disallowal of Tarkowski's goal on Saturday would surely have to be the worst decision of the week. But Stuart Attwell's decision to book Dango Ouattara for 'simulation' rather than book (and send off) Dan Burn and award a penalty, when the big defender had clearly trodden on the forward's foot. was utterly mystifying; even stranger was VAR's unwillingness to say anything about it. As it happened, this had no real impact on the game. Burn would pick up a second yellow for a penalty foul on the same player shortly afterwards, and Brentford would go on to win fairly comfortably against a Newcastle who were looking jaded after midweek exertions in the Champsions League. Nick Pope's withdrawal with a possible shoulder or collarbone injury, after a heavy landing, will be a concern to the 12% of FPL managers who (unwisely!) include him in their teams.

Sean Dyche seems to be shoring up Nottingham Forest, and they look like they should soon be able to climb out of the relegation places. Leeds can perhaps take some comfort from a well-taken goal from their new forward, the German Lukas Nmecha, but are otherwise looking increasingly relegation-worthy. The only major incident of note was the award of a penalty to substitute Omari Hutchinson - who was under pressure from behind, but appeared to simply trip over his own feet; and this rather odd decision from the ref was apparently not reconsidered by VAR at all, or only very briefly. It was also perhaps a bit of a surprise that Elliot Anderson has taken over on penalties for Forest, after Morgan Gibbs-White had muffed one against Sturm Graz a few days ago. (He dispatched it calmly, emphatically. And since he tends to do very well on 'defensive contributions' as well, this lift to his points potential might possibly bring him into FPL consideration for the '5th seat' slot in midfield.)

The Liverpool 'revival' does indeed look fragile: after their dominating display against Real Madrid in midweek, they were suddenly back to misfiring at The Etihad. Luck was most definitely not on their side, though: Haaland's opener was a happy fluke, the ball fortuitously bouncing off his head into the goal rather than being purposefully headed in that direction - after Konate's attempt to head the ball to safety merely gave it a glancing deflection on to the big Viking rather than a decisive redirect away from him; Nico Gonzalez's firm drive from the edge of the box needed two deflections off defenders' legs to find its way past Mamardashvili, and then Doku conjured an unstoppable curler from just outside the area to put the result beyond question. Liverpool got at the home side more effectively in the second half, and had their chances: Gakpo blazing over at the far post, Salah's clever dink past Donnarumma drifting agonisingly just wide of the far post, and then a fierce drive from Szoboszlai requiring a good one-handed save from the keeper. The one big point of contention in the match was the strange VAR decision to overturn (on their own authority, without directing a review by the ref?) Chris Kavanagh's initial allowing of Virgil Van Dijk's headed goal from a corner, which would have put Liverpool level at 1-1; Andy Robertson was offside, and had to duck under the flight of the ball - but he made no attempt to play it, and he was not in any way interfering with Donnarumma or any of the City defenders. The penalty award early on was a bit of a dubious incident too: while Mamardashvili had just touched Doku with his knee, it was a very, very slight contact, perhaps not really enough to bring the attacker down - and his eventual collapse a few steps later looked very much like 'a dive'; it was perhaps technically a 'foul', but a very soft one, and the kind of incident that I would prefer to see not given as a penalty. Kavanagh's initial response was to signal 'no foul', and I don't see that that was an egregious enough 'error' to warrant VAR insisting that he look at it again. As it happened, this didn't affect the result, as Haaland hit a weak penalty that Mamardashvili was able to save - though that unlikely occurrence, of course, had a huge FPL impact. And Uncle Arne was at it again with the early substitutions, withdrawing Robertson and Ekitike after just 55 minutes.

The absurd denial of Tarkowski's goal at Everton was one of the worst decisions of the season so far. There were 2 rather dubious VAR interventions in the week's biggest game, at The Etihad, as well as a dreadful non-award of a penalty to Brentford and a rather dubious granting of one to Nottingham Forest And we have, yet again, seen a lot of goals from defenders, and a lot of goals in the dying minues of games. There's been that curious case of FPL/Opta somehow not recognising Raya as making any saves aagainst Sunderland (which rather calls into question the reliability of all the stats on which this game relies!), and a couple of mildly contentious potential red card incidents. Then on Sunday, we had two of the game's highest-owned players, Haaland and Semenyo, both fail to convert penalties! The FPL 'Team of the Week' is usually one of the strongest indicators of the fluctuating 'luck factor': and it is once more a pretty oddball collection: Pickford, Saka, and Joao Pedro were the only inclusions with any significant ownership after Saturday's games; and after Sunday, only Saka was left, The 'global average' this week was a remarkably low 38 points; though, curiously, while in most previous weeks this season the distribution curve seems to have been heavily skewed towards the low side, with the majority of FPL managers actually getting slightly less than the average, here the largest concentration of scores seemed to be in the 40s and 50s.  With quite a bit of dodgy officiating, and so many of the most fancied players failing to produce anything, I think this week gets up to an 8 out of 10 on the 'Luck-o-Meter'.

Sheep Picks (17)

I quite often snipe at 'The Sheep' element among Fantasy Premier League managers - by which I mean the substantial numbers (possibly, alas, an overall majority) who don't really understand FPL that well, or even follow the EPL that closely, and so make most of their decisions based on an impulsive reaction to last week's results... and/or at the promptings of FPL's own vapid pundit 'The Scout' or the many similarly unimaginative 'influencers' out here on the Internet.... or indeed just following whatever seems to be a popular pick being mentioned a lot in online discussion forums. This often coalesces into a kind of collective hysteria - where the HUGE numbers of managers rushing in to buy a certain player bears no relation to his true worth, his likely points potential over the next handful of games. The player in question might not be at all bad (though often he is); but he is not the irresistible bargain, the must-have asset that so many people seem to think

Hence, I created this occasional series of posts highlighting players I think are dangerously over-owned, are the subject of a sudden and misguided enthusiasm.

This is probably the disrecommendation in this series that I feel most hesitant, least confident about, but.... remember, the point of this 'Sheep Pick' category is not that these players have no merit, but that they're dangerously over-popular just at the moment. And going into Gameweek 11 of the 25-26 season, I think that certainly applies to Palace forward Jean-Philippe Mateta.

Mateta is the most transferred-in player this week, by a mile, with 435,000 new owners - and counting (still 5 hours till deadline!). 

Here's why I think those recent purcchasers are probably mistaken:

1)  They're a bit late to the party! Some may use the excuse of the injury news this week about the unaccountably popular Viktor Gyokeres (the week's second most transferred-out player since it was revealed that he was likely to be out-of-action for a few weeks, nearly 300,000 quitting on him in the last few days) giving an additional opportunity/incentive to bring in Mateta. But really, the uptick in his form has been emerging over the last few weeks, and the decisive turn in fixture-difficulty for Palace occurred last week - so, Gameweek 10 was when you really ought to have bought him, if you fancied him.

2)  His numbers really aren't that good. The Bournemouth game was really a bit of a freak result, with both sides being far more open - and downright leaky in defence! - than was expected; and he needed a very soft penalty award to complete his hattrick there, having squandered 3 or 4 of his best opportunities in the match. His chance-conversion rate is actually pretty terrible, one of the most profligate in the league: he scores in games where he gets a lot of chances - but in games where he doesn't enjoy so many chances, he's not likely to get on the scoresheet. If you discount that penalty, he's only got 3 goals in his last 3 league games - which is nothing that remarkable for an 'in-form' striker. And prior to that, he'd only managed 2 goals in 7 games - which is arguably a more accurate reflection of his typical level of performance.

3)  Palace don't have a gimme fixture this week. 'Derby' games are almost always a bit tumultuous and unpredictable. And Brighton, although inconsistent, are a very dangerous opponent, and have shown strongly improving form over the last few weeks. Most of the bookies only have Palace at about 5/4 or 6/5 for the win - and I think that's a little bit generous.

4)  He's not obviously the most appealing pick for this week in his price category. Unless you're swapping him in for Gyokeres (and, presumably, at least 135,000 of his new owners are replacing someone else with him!), the most obvious swap-targets are Nick Woltemade and Joao Pedro. They both have much softer opponents than Palace this week. Admittedly, Woltemade had a bit of a 'mare last weekend; but it looks as though that uncharacterisically 'off day' was caused by some transient problem with injury or illness; prior to that, his recent form had been outstanding. Joao Pedro has been in something of a slump, but we know he has the quality to hurt any opponent; and he has suddenly started to look back to his best in his last two outings, against Spurs and Qarabag in the past week. So, there is really not a compelling case to use up a transfer bringing in Mateta for either of them this week (next gameweek, maybe; Pedro's uptick in form may prove to have been evanescent; and Newcastle's fixtures are a bit challenging in at least 3 - arguably 5 or 6! - of their next 7 games after this week).

5)  Palace without Adam Wharton tend to be much less dangerous. The young midfielder is the crucial progressive passer in their midfield. He was out with an illness last week, and is reportedly still suffering with his fitness this week. If he can't start, or is well below his best because of this, it is much less likely that Palace will produce a good overall performance and achieve a good result.

6)  Palace's upcoming fixtures aren't that easy.  Manchester United, City, and Spurs - even at home - can be very challenging opponents; and Burnley, Fulham, and Leeds, away, might not be pushovers. Bringing Mateta in just for the next 2 matches, against Brighton and Wolves, would be a spendthrift use of transfers!

7)  As ever, there's a club quota issue to keep in mind as well. Palace's defensive record has been so good that most people want at least 1, possibly 2 of their defenders; and Dean Henderson is one of the most appealing goalkeeper picks too. And amongst their attacking players, Ismaila Sarr is often a tempting option - as a fairly inexpensive goalscoring midfielder. If you choose Mateta, you're denying yourself one of these - who are likely to prove more valuable to you in their positions.

8)  Even if he does produce good returns over the next month or so, Mateta might not be an optimum use of budget. He's become a bit expensive now, at 7.9 million pounds; he costs more than Woltemade and Joao Pedro (and Bowen); he costs a lot more than Welbeck, Thiago, Kroupi, and Isidor - who, frankly, have looked in much better form than Mateta. Sesko probably shouldn't be written off, either, as United seem to be slowly getting their shit together somewhat. And a number of budget forward options are suddenly getting a run of starts, and might soon come into contention for inclusion in FPL squads: Callum Wilson, Zian Flemming, Randal Kolo Muani, Igor Jesus,... maybe Liam Delap...  It is quite likely that some of the best attacking midfield talents will start producing again soon: Mbeumo and Trossard should already be 'on the radar' (if not already in the squad!!), and I think it is highly likely that we'll all soon be wanting someone like Saka, Palmer, or Cunha again. There'll be a need to free up some budget to afford players like that; and the most obvious way to do that is by going without higher-priced forwards (Haaland is pretty much essential at the moment; but you could easily go with 2 fairly cheap back-ups - ideally with nice fixture-difficulty rotation!).

9)  The times, they are a-changin'.....  Further to that last point, I think it's very likely that we'll start seeing a number of the most dangerous attacking/creative midfielders, who've been weirdly 'absent' so far this season, return to form/fitness and start producing big FPL returns again. If/when that happens - and it might be soon - we'll probably want to scale back on our forward line. At the moment, most people have built up a strong defensive roster (because that's where most of the points have been coming from so far!), and have often been starting 4 - or occasionally even 5! - of them. That seems likely to continue for a while, as most of the upcoming gameweeks have quite a few seriously unbalanced fixtures in them, and a number of teams (not just Arsenal!) will stand above-average chances of delivering a clean sheet. If we suddenly have more scoring prospects in midfield too, and often want to start 4 or 5 of them (rather than only 3, as has become quite common of late), there will only be room for 2 regular starting forwards - sometimes, perhaps, only 1 (Haaland!!). Now does not seem like a prudent time to be dropping nearly 8-million quid on a forward!

Now, I do rate Mateta; and I do think he's in decent form. He is not by any means a terrible pick, just in terms of his ability and points prospects: there is a very good chance that he will score this week, and/or in a number of the upcoming gameweeks. But in the overall selection context, I see him as an unconvincing choice - he's not clearly better than the closest alternatives, and he's just too damned expensive.

Dilemmas of the Week - Gameweek 11 (25/26)

 

Remarkably few new injury concerns arising from the week's European ties, so this could be quite a brief rundown (for once)!

I'm trying to streamline these weekly round-ups a bit from last year, restricting myself for the most part to just the injuries etc. affecting players that are likely to have a major significance in FPL; and also, of course, only to new injuries - I figure everyone should be aware of players who've already been ruled out for some time!  

[For some years, I have found the 'Injuries & Bans' summary on Fantasy Football Scout the most reliable resource for this kind of information; although this site, Premier League Injuries, is a very good alternative (often a little quicker to update, I think - though it did go through a bit of a glitchy period for a while last year).  Go check these out for more comprehensive coverage. 

I see the Fantasy Premier League site has added an improved 'Player Availability' page this year (though hidden under 'The Scout' tab?!). That also seems to be reasonably comprehensive and up-to-date, but god knows how it's supposed to be 'organised' - maybe by 'date of injury'? Obviously, arranging it by club and alphabetical order would be more sensible; but the denizens of FPL Towers seem to have a deep aversion to the sensible.]

So, what are the conundrums we face ahead of Gameweek 11 of the season?

Does anybody need to be moved out because of injury?

The biggest news of the week is probably the absence of Viktor Gyokeres at Arsenal, who had to come off at half-time in the Burnley game last week with a muscle problem, and now seems set to be out for at least a few weeks. That's quite a big deal for FPL, because, despite his very limited points output so far, Gyokers was remarkably owned by nearly 20% of managers! Mikel Merino looks likely to deputise at 'centre forward', as he did in Tuesday's game in Prague (although I'd rather see him in midfield, and move Trossard into the central attacking role, with Eze alongside him on the left).

Tyrone Mings suffered a hamstring strain against Liverpool last weekend, and might be ruled out for several weeks.

Romeo Lavia limped off the other night against Qarabag with a thigh muscle problem; still being assessed, but seemingly out of contention at least for this week. Pedro Neto missed the European game with a knock, but Maresca is optimistic that he'll be available this weekend.

Dominic Calvertt-Lewin had to come off against Brighton last week with a muscle problem. He has been of zero relevance in FPL so far, but his enforced absence should finally give a chance to Joel Piroe, who was outstanding for Leeds in the Championship last year.

Mateo Kovacic apparently missed the Bournemouth game last Sunday because an ankle injury picked up in training; seems likely to be out for some weeks.

Anthony Gordon was withdrawn at half-time against Athletic Bilbao on Wednesday with a recurrence of a hip problem. Back-up striker Will Osula is also struggling with an ankle problem, which is expected to now rule him out for some weeks. At least full-backs Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento seem to be nearing a possible return - though probably not this week.

Callum Hudson-Odoi suffered a dead leg against Manchester United last time, and seems set to be unavailable this week. Summer signing Omari Hutchinson should finally get a chance to appear on the right side of the attack, with Dan Ndoye probably switching to the left.

Lucas Bergvall suffered a serious concussion in Saturday's match against Chelsea and will be out for a couple of weeks. Mo Kudus is also suffering from a knock, and had to miss the Champions League game against Copenhagen on Tuesday.

Wolves midfielder Rodrigo Gomes needed surgery this week on a groin injury picked up in the recent League Cup defeat by Chelsea, and may be out for two to three months.

Do we have any players who are dropped, or not looking likely to get the starts we hoped for?

Wolves centre-back Emmanuel Agbadou is serving a one-match ban after being sent off (slightly harshly) for a 'denial of a goalscoring opportunity' against Fulham.

Did anyone give other cause to consider dropping them?

No-one really stank the place up last time out - although Wolves (currently under the caretaker management of youth team coach James Collins, as they struggle to find a replacement for the ousted Vitor Pereira), and perhaps also Leeds, look like poison at the moment, while Everton appear to have run out of steam, after their bright start, and Newcastle, Spurs, and Villa were severely unimpressive last time out.

And there are now several players who are getting worryingly close to a 'totting up' suspension.

Did anyone play so well, you have to consider bringing them in immediately?

Dominik Szoboszlai, outstanding all season, has been instrumental in Liverpool's apparent revival this week against Aston Villa and Real Madrid, and looks likely to have a lot more attacking impact if he continues to play in the 'No. 10' spot (only 50,000 new buyers this week is really a pretty sluggish response from the market!). Hugo Ekitike might suddenly be looking a temping option again too; although, with Alexander Isak expected to be available again by the end of the month, that might be a very short-term punt.

Joao Pedro has also suddenly looked very sharp again in his last two outings, against Spurs and Slavia Prague, and over 220,000 FPL managers have piled in for him already this week (many of whom probably only sold him in the last week or two!!), no doubt further encouraged by the prospect of his facing Wolves, Burnley, Leeds, and Everton between now and mid-December. However, with Chelsea's yo-yo-ing form this season, I would curb my enthusiasm on that: there are lots of other tempting forward options at the moment; and if you only just sold him, he hasn't yet given convincing evidence for anyone to repent of that.

Rayan Cherki has caught the eye as well in his last couple of outings for City; but the ever-present threat of 'Pep Roulette' must give us pause on that for a while, I think - until we see if he might become a regular and influential starter.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!

A little bit of Zen (67)

'The Library of Babel' 

"Intelligence is not making no mistakes, but quickly seeing how to make them good." 

Bertolt Brecht

"In my next life I will try to commit more errors."

Jorge Luis Borges

Yes, we've had the Brecht line on here before (well spotted!); but I couldn't resist repeating it, as it goes so well with Borges' resolution.

Treble-up Arsenal defence??

 

Well, a lot of people are talking about that idea now.

And we do seem to be facing a unique situation where - at least for now - Arsenal are really looking like they might keep a clean sheet almost every week (and could perhaps shatter Chelsea's long-standing record for the most in a season?!), while all the other leading contenders have been showing worrying defensive vulnerabilities.

And not only are Arsenal's defenders looking likely to do far better from clean sheets than any other team, they're also looking amongst the strongest prospects for attacking contributions too (particularly Gabriel, who is currently wreaking havoc as the main target man in the opposition box at corners and free-kicks). They might not often do so well on the new 'defensive points', as they're usually dominating possession too well to need to win the ball back and break up opposition attacks very often (though, again, Gabriel in particular has often posted some very good numbers for 'defensive contributions').

So, if Arsenal's defenders really do look likely to produce much better FPL points than any other defenders (at the moment), why not have THREE of them?

Well, there are a number of reasons:

1)  Failure to spread risk.  It's generally a bad idea to take too many players from one team, and especially in the same position on the field. While Arsenal, at the moment, are generally the most likely team to preserve a clean sheet, they are never going to be the only team that does so in any gameweek. And certain defenders in other teams might occasionally offer better points returns in other categories. While having 2 or 3 Arsenal defenders will serve you very well whenever they do keep a clean sheet, it might not always be the optimal FPL lineup even when that happens; and when they don't, you could be very hard hit. Remember a couple of years ago - Virgil Van Dijk got himself sent off for 'a denial of a goalscoring opportunity' foul in the opening minutes, and Liverpool ended up losing a game they had been expected to win comfortably. Shit happens. If shit like that happens to Arsenal, being trebled-up on their defence would be very bad news. And an unexpected postponement, due to bad weather or whatever (as happened last year with the first Merseyside derby at Anfield), could also be devastating. The one thing you can generally rely on with FPL is that if you leave yourself exposed to the cruelties of Fate, Fate will be cruel to you!

2)  It's dangerous to bet on clean sheets. They can evaporate so easily. And no-one - not even the best defence in the league (and I'm not going to argue that Arsenal aren't that) - keeps a clean sheet every week. In fact, even the best defences don't usually manage a clean sheet more than once every two games across the season. Arsenal have just enjoyed a somewhat freakish run of success - helped by a very easy run of fixtures - and it is very likely that their defensive returns will falter slightly before long.

3)  Lack of rotation options.  Arsenal might face a Blank Gameweek at some point. And there will be some fixtures in which you don't want to play all - or any - of their defensive players in your starting lineup. Away to City or Liverpool, or any other good team that's hit a run of hot goalscoring form,... you don't want to be betting on clean sheets. You can very easily find yourself short of defenders if you rely so heavily on one team.

4)  Lack of flexibility.  As I said in my post last week about David Raya being a bad pick, you really want as often as possible to leave yourself the option of bringing in a third player from any high-performing side at an opportune moment; limiting yourself to only 2 players per club most of the time makes it easy for you to bring in a third whenever someone starts hitting a really hot streak of form.

5)  Ignoring the attacking options.  Especially with a title-chasing side, it is very likely that some of their forwards or midfielders will also have a strong claim to inclusion in your squad - at least for certain phases of the season. Is a third Arsenal defender often - regularly, always - going to give you a better points-lift over another defender than, for example, Saka or Trossard or Eze might over another midfielder?

So,.... there is a very strong case at the moment for taking 2 Arsenal defenders: though even that is a bold, risky strategy that is only justified in rare circumstances. But going for 3 is unnecessary,... completely bloody crazy.

And, although goalkeepers should not be 'confused' with defenders (a sadly common vice in FPL-land), since the scoring system for them is notably different, and the competitive landscape of comparison with rival picks is very different too,... well, here it is legitimate to include David Raya in the equation as well. It is undesirable to take more than 2 players from the Arsenal defence (whether that is Raya + another defender, or Gabriel + another defender). In fact, as I argued in that earlier post, it is undesirable to take Raya at all, as he won't get nearly so much benefit as his defenders from a large number of clean sheets, and probably won't outscore the other top keepers by much, if anything.

But yes, just at the moment, it is looking.... not quite 'essential', but very, very appealing to have 2 Arsenal defenders.

Fireworks and baked potatoes....

It is one of the peculiar perversities of the English national character that we choose to 'celebrate' a terrorist who tried to blow up the King and the government (um.... and to overlook the unfortunate fact that the origins of this dark festival were rooted in anti-Catholic paranoia....), but so it is. 

For people who grew up in England, November 5th - Guy Fawkes Day - is probably second only to Christmas in the emotional resonances it conjures from childhood. It is the only day of the year on which we let off fireworks, one of the few in which we may have a barbecue,... and probably the only occasion on which we'll have large outdoor parties at night and build BIG bonfires. The fact that it happens just as the days are getting short and the nights are getting chill, as autumn starts to transition into winter, adds to the special mystique of the event. I haven't actually been to a Bonfire Party for years, but the recollection of them still brings on a swoon of nostalgia.

I think I will try to buy myself some nice big potatoes for baking today, and cook up a pot of chilli con carne to pour over them. I might even brew up some mulled wine...

It is hard to celebrate the traditional holidays of home on the opposite side of globe. But these occasions are mostly about the emotions, the memories - a few little prompts like the smell of baking potatoes are all that's needed to bring on the feeling...

And if there is a Fantasy Football tie-in here, it's probably this: I do like to see myself as a constructive anarchist, an irreverent upsetter of apple-carts, a swashbuckling 'freedom fighter' - striving to blow up the corrupt edifice of FPL fetishism and superstition. Yes, I can find a metaphor anywhere!

Cruel Fate!

As I mentioned yesterday, it's been an exceptionally low-scoring season so far - with Gameweek 10 just past being one of the only ones so far to produce a decent 'Global Average' (remarkably, 4 gameweeks so far have produced average scores in the low 40s!).

It's also been just a particularly weird season - with none of the usually most fancied players (apart from Haaland) among the forwards or attacking midfielders yet producing very much, and an unusually large number of huge hauls from complete randoms almost every week, with defenders and defensive midfielders strangely being among the most regular goalscorers so far. And on top of that, few teams have yet produced any consistent form: title hopefuls Liverpool and Manchester City have been quite poor so far, leaving Arsenal starting to look set to win the crown only by default - possibly smashing all known records for the number of clean sheets, but perhaps not scoring that many goals either.

It is, in fact the oddest season in FPL that I can remember - utterly, maddeningly unpredictable.

Amid so many bizarre and unusual events, the impact of LUCK is probably even greater than usual. And this latest - reasonably 'good' for most people - gameweek is a prime example of that.

People who bet the captaincy on Haaland this past week were richly rewarded (some even hazarded their Triple Captaincy on it, though that really wasn't 'smart'); anyone who didn't was harshly penalised. But really, why would you fancy Haaland to have an especially big game against Bournemouth, one of the best defences in the league?? Fancying other options - particularly one of the 'forward-in-disguise' midfielders like Saka or Mbeumo, or perhaps Newcastle's recently sharp-looking Jacob Murphy - with this week's fixtures made perfect sense. Similarly, it was perfectly reasonable to choose Woltemade rather than Mateta on recent form (though the Palace forward has started banging in some nice goals lately, his chance-conversion rate is still shockingly poor); but the big German was oddly out-of-sorts this week (possibly struggling with injury or illness?) and was withdrawn at half-time, while Mateta did again come up with a goal. And it's perfectly reasonable to have taken another Arsenal defender instead of Gabriel (Timber and Calafiori regularly look more likely to pick up goals or assists; it just hasn't quite been happening for them in recent games...); but the big Brazilian continued his absurdly hot streak (surely unsustainable much longer???) by coming up with yet another assist.... on the one occasion when Burnley forgot how to defend a corner.

Here's a guy I found in one of my mini-leagues - a pretty smart player, I think: usually runs me fairly close,... sometimes beats me! He's having a particularly rotten time of it just lately. And in this Gameweek - oh, my good lord, the poor chap somehow found himself down in the bottom 10% for the week??!! Yet there really isn't that much wrong with this team; it was just one of those weeks where almost everyone - especially his captain choice - somehow failed to come through for him. It can happen to any of us!

Unlucky Alf - one of the week's worst performances

Kudus has been disappointing for a while; but perhaps there have been other priorities to fix in the team in recent weeks. And it might be 'bold' to stick with any Liverpool players through their recent rough patch; but Szoboszlai has actually looked the best of them. Tarkowski has regularly been a monster on the 'defensive contributions', and until recently was earning a fair few clean sheets as well. If you'd gone for Calafiori (or Timber) early in the season, it would be reasonable enough to stick with them, rather than joining the late rush for Gabriel (who isn't likely to maintain his recent ridiculously high rate of returns for an extended spell). Thiago and/or Woltemade might prove to be better picks than Mateta over the coming weeks. He's got a pretty decent bench too.

I hope he stays strong, and doesn't get panicked into making a lot of changes (as most FPL managers do, when they have a really awful week like this). It really was just rank bad luck for him this week. The team, the squad is basically pretty sound. There is a strong - almost overwhelming - case for getting Gabriel in as a second Arsenal defender (though he's getting rather expensive now; and should be about due for a 'slump' in productivity!). Kudus and maybe Szoboszlai probably need to go; perhaps Saka too, if he doesn't start producing soon. But this is actually a very solid squad: it didn't 'deserve' to take such a battering from the Fantasy Gods this week! It is, alas, a notoriously cruel game; a cruel, cruel, cruel game.

[Sure enough, the following week he completely turned things around, achieving a weekly rank near the top 20,000. This is actually a really good squad. But even a really good squad can sometimes have a really awful week. The important thing, when something like that happens, is to take the misfortune calmly - and not let yourself be rushed into panicky, unnecessary changes.]

Premature Chip-ulation!

 

Gameweek 10's 'Global Average' score of 65 points was the highest we've yet seen this season. (The weekly average for the 9 previous gameweeks was less than 52; it has been an extraordinarily low-scoring season so far - probably one of the worst on record, certainly the worst I can remember in the last several years.) It's still not at all a great weekly score; but it is much the best we've had so far.

One reason for that is that a few well-fancied - and recently heavily purchased - players such as Gabriel, Mateta, Guehi, Rice, and Minteh all came up with returns; as well as the inevitable Erling Haaland, of course.

But also, a surprisingly large number of people were playing a Bonus Chip this week. And those who went with a Triple Captain play on Haaland did fairly well out of it: a 13-point haul is a very reasonable return on the chip.  (Although, of course, it's some way short of an optimal outcome, since he's quite likely to complete a hatttrick at some point; and both he and a number of other players have already recorded better hauls in other games.) For most of those hazarding their Bench Boost, the chip play probably went much worse.

But really, neither of them deserved to prosper.

There just wasn't any compelling rationale for playing either of the Bonus Chips this weekend. (The Wildcard, yes, because this gameweek marked the one really major 'turn' in fixture difficulty for leading teams in this first half of the season.)  Haaland is still looking like the only player we can look to for a likelihood of fairly regular big hauls; but Bournemouth are a very tough opponent, one of the best defensive teams in the league at the moment. City's next home game is against Liverpool, who haven't been looking very solid at the back this season; and the next three after that are against two of the promoted sides and early relegation favourites West Ham; and they also have an away game against struggling Fulham in there. How can Leeds or West Ham, at home, within the next month or so, not be preferable Triple Captain 'targets' for Haaland?? 

And this Gameweek just didn't offer a good set of fixtures for a Bench Boost play. To get a good return on that chip, you need: a) a strong Bench; b) all 15 players looking certain to start; and c) almost all 15 of your squad facing an attractive fixture. This week, most of the fixtures were too close to call. Only Arsenal and Newcastle were facing obviously weaker opponents; and Newcastle managed to lose anyway. We ended up with a pretty modest total of only 27 goals and 6 clean sheets - not at all a weekend to expect bumper scores.

I understand the nervousness, the impatience, the impulse in many FPL managers to simply get the first Bonus Chips out of the way.. It is a bit discombobulating this season to be faced with an extra set of chips - for which there really is no especially useful purpose in the first half of the season. And there is a risk in waiting too long to play them. This first set of chips has to be used before the mid-point of the season at the end of December; and the crazy fixture density over the holiday season leads to more injuries and rotations, more erratic and unpredictable results - that's not a great time to be playing Bonus Chips either. But really, in the next 5 or 6 weeks, before we get into the worst of that end-of-year mayhem,... Haaland faces 3 or 4 very inviting opponents, who should all surely be better options for a Triple Captain play than Bournemouth (they might not be, in practice; but they really look like they ought to be). And Gameweeks 12, 13, 15, 16, and 17 all look like tempting opportunities for the Bench Boost.

You really ought to have A GOOD REASON for choosing to play chips when you do - something more than just "It was burning a hole in my pocket..." or "My dog told me to do it."